U.S. Teammates Are Old Pals

U.S. midfielder Benny Feilhaber playing club soccer last fall.(Henning Bagger/EuroFootball/Getty Images)

Tomorrow morning, at 10 am E.S.T., the U.S. soccer team—that would be Tablet Magazine’s official squad—plays its final game of the group round against Algeria. Should it win, it advances. Should it lose, it is done. Should it draw, there is a complicated scenario involving what happens in the contemporaneous England-Slovenia match, but it would still stand a good chance to advance. Anyway: Go Yanks!

Meanwhile. We have by now established that Benny Feilhaber, the U.S. reserve midfielder and one of three Jews on the team, is kind of awesome (that’s one word for it, anyway). But here are some fun facts, dug up by the Jewish Journal: Feilhaber and Jonathan Bornstein—a defender who is another of the U.S. team’s Jews (the third is Jonathan Spector)—have been friends since high school; played together on the under-17 Irvine Strikers and the 2005 Silver Medal-winning Maccabiah Games team; and were even roommates at UCLA.

If the Americans are down or tied after the first half, it’s a good bet that Feilhaber, who is more of an offensive player than one of the starting midfielders, will go in; he did last game. So don’t forget to watch!

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